chest pain/twinges

[michele65]

A little while after waking up I started getting these twinges. They appear to be in the crease under my left breast. It is not one constant twinge the ones im having come and go every few seconds and they last for a few seconds. I am starting to worry as I always panic with my health because I am obese. I am 41 and when I last weighed myself I was a staggering 21 stone 6lbs. Can anyone help me with the answer to what these twinges might be.

[LIndaAT]

so interesting about Aspartame. It's bad for many reasons. I know it causes migraines for a lot of folks

[LIndaAT]

Reading these posts helps me greatly! I am a nurse but still get the same anxiety that many of your reported. I too have had lots of tests showing nothing. At least I don't feel so much like a hypochondriac or crazy person. Thank you each and all for sharing, even if we're undiagnosed. One cardiologist suggested a round of ibuprophen for several days in case it's chostocondritis (inflammation of the tissue between the ribs and the sternum). Anyone done that?

[twingesufferer]

I was looking at this posting last week because I've been having twinges in my heart area that could be really painful at times.  I saw someone's post mentioning diet soda which I had started drinking more of in the past couple of months.  I'd read about aspartame side effects before and realized that may be the trigger.  Sure enough, I haven't had diet soda in 5 days and have had NO twinges since!!  I'm so grateful to whoever mentioned it in their post.  If you drink diet soda, see how you feel without it.  Nothing to lose, right?

[craigie_32571]

My wife has been having "twinges" around her heart since she had a heart stoppage November 15, (Dr. said it wasn't a heart attack because there was no damage to the heart muscle.....her heart simply siezed and stopped but she was revived in 9 minutes with CPR and the 3 heart starting drugs). She has constant "twinges" now and it scares both of us. Has anyone gotten any more information on the causes, (and cure), of the events? Please post.  Thanks,

[jmarks225]

  I to have been feeling the same run down, twinges around my heart and even migraines. I am 46 I am overweight but have been healthy all my life my last physical was terrific other than needing to loose weight.
  These twinges for me happen after I wake up or during the night when I roll from side to side at night. This last for about 5 minutes after I turn with several twinges and when I sit up.
   A friend told me to stop drinking Dt Coke because of aspartame will cause this. Don't know if this will work but have not drank any today.

[kawwal]

I have experienced similar condition, very sharp sudden twinge at times (left side of chest), luckily first time it happened i was at friend's house who has rushed to give me a spoonful of cumin and a glass of water to swallow it with, i was sceptical as i was in agony.... swallowed the cumin and the water quickly cos the cumin dosent taste good...any way a minute later the pain disappeared fast... i still get the same pain from time to time.... cumin is my magic portion..... you may want to try it....

the secret behind this is mostly not related with the heart... but with the gut... trapped wind in the gut ... indigestion.....so don't worry

I hope this is helpful
Laila

[jimmyodee]

Dear all,

I am so glad that my search on "twinges on left hand side of heart" directed me to this post.

I am only 31, I weigh under 90 kilos, and exercise quite regularly.  I do have slightly higher than normal cholesterol which I cannot understand because I have a fairly healthy lifestyle.  

Anyhow, in the last 6 months I have been getting these "twinges" and ECG, chest x-ray etc. does not show anything up.

It greatly worries me that no medic can accurately diagnose my condition.

Many thanks for your posts.

Jim

[terrie94]

I am a 46-year-old female. I have had chest pressure for 8 years now and within the last two years I’ve experienced bouts of twinges in and around my heart.  They are almost constant and last for days and then just go away for months.   The past 3 weeks the twinges haven’t gone away. I exercised 2 days before they started and that appears to be what brought them on but not sure.  Within the last 3 years I have had ekg’s, electrocardiograms, stress tests, ct scans of head and abdomen, king of hearts heart monitor, everything except an angiogram.  All have come back normal except they found I have premature ventricular contractions. PVC’s are fairly normal and are not life threatening.  I don’t have high blood pressure but have been taken Atenolol periodically for several years when my heart tweaks out.  For the past 3 months I’ve been taking it everyday.  This is supposed to help make the heart relax so I don’t feel the PVC’s so much.  Nothing seems to help the heart twinges. I also have pounding in my ears like a heartbeat whenever I climb stairs or exert myself.  At night sometimes I hear it.  I think the atenolol helps with that but not all the time.  I am so tired of feeling like crap.  I am not over weight and don’t smoke, never have. I do have a glass of wine every night to help me sleep.  I don’t have insurance and have spent so much money in order to find the problem.  I have been living with it for years and the doctors say that if it were critical then basically it would have manifested into something bad.  Not much comfort. I hope you find an answer and better doctors than I’ve had. If you do find out, please don’t forget to post your answer so it can help all that are lost in this condition.  

[Berny50]

I too have been having this problem for about 8 years.  It drives me insane.  I get a stabbing pain like a needle going from my left side under my ribs straight through to my heart.  I went through a period of time when I felt my heart was skipping beats.  Both of these would usually happen at night when everything was quiet.  But then it was starting to happen during the day.

Like all of you, I had the ecg. ekg, stress tests, scans on my heart for build up etc.  Nothing ever showed up.  This past January,  I went to one of those mobile heart clinics, where they do a series of tests including the blood pressure tests on both arms and both ankles.  They also did an ultra sound test that was on the stomache and on the heart.  They diagnosed me with "Mild Brady Cardia"  Which is essentially a slow heart beat. Incidentally, this is very hard todiagnose if you are fairly young because it is not constant and they will not detect it if it is not going on all the time.  If severe enough, may require a pacemaker.

This made no sense to me because my heart beat never feels slow and has never been slow during any of my checkups.  However, this can be very random and never picked up unless you happen to have the episode during the test.  Which by the way I am happy to say, I did have the "twinges" during the test.

I have been going to heart doctors for years, looking like an idiot, because I was only 40, not diabetic, normal blood pressure, may be 10-15 lbs from what I would really like to weigh and I would be sitting in the cardiologists office next to people that were 80 years old.

I don't know what I can do about this, but I feel calmer and am making a gereater effort trying to avoid the things I can, like the other heart disease contributing factors (weight etc.)

I hope this is helpful.

[zardos]

i too have been having these sharp,painful twinges of the heart for about 8 months now.I 've had bloodwork/EKG's/x-rays twice and nothing has shown up.I'm a 44 y.o. male.....fairly fit...never smoked.I'm 5'10" about 160 lbs.I was drinking quite heavly at one time...have since cut way back.The doc put me on nexium for what he deems..."an acid reflux problem".This feels totally from my heart and is very alarming,almost like my heart is going to seize up.It's that incapacitating.Sometimes on bad days it happens two/three times(the twinges) then i'm left with a dull ache,leftside of chest.I have noticed occasionally my heart skips a beat at rest.It never seems to happen when i'm tired or asleep.I can only find solace in the fact that i'm not the only one out there and i'm not a hypochrondiac wasting the Doc's precious time

[tanns]

Well, if you are still reading this.  Nothing I described alarmed him.  He wasn't concerned based on all my tests being fine and wouldn't recommend anything else.  Great to hear, hard to deal with since all the weirdness is still around.

I hope you are feeling better.

[tanns]

I was really hoping someone would have been able to answer this question.  Twinge.  I never thought of that word but it fits perfectly.  I also have a weirdness (that's what I've always called it) in that SAME area.  I have been through a HUGE amount of tests and nothing has come up.  THANK GOODNESS but still.......they still are around.  I see a doc at the Mayo Clinic for a followup of all my  tests on the 26th, I'll let you know what he says.  I'll definitely use that word and hope it rings a bell for him!!

Hope you feel better soon!